James Simmons (1933-2001)

Simmons is a one-off, highly skilled and versatile, a genuinely accessible writer, who speaks from the life endured or enjoyed by many. Poems 1956-1986 deserves to be widely and repeatedly read.

— Sean O’Brien

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James Simmons was born in Derry in 1933 and died in County Donegal in 2001. He taught in universities in Ireland, England and Africa and was Writer-in-Residence at Queen’s University, Belfast. His collections of poems included Late but in Earnest, Energy to Burn, Constantly Singing and From the Irish.

Founder editor of The Honest Ulsterman and author of Seán O’Casey (1983), he released a number of LPs of his own songs. With his wife, Janice Fitzpatrick Simmons, he founded The Poet’s House, first in Islandmagee, County Antrim, and then in Falcarragh, County Donegal.

Poems 1956-1986 was published by The Gallery Press in 1986.

Poems 1956-1986

‘Simmons is a one-off, highly skilled and versatile, a genuinely accessible writer, who speaks from the life endured or enjoyed by many. Poems 1956-1986 deserves to be widely and repeatedly read.’ — Sean O’Brien

This book includes more than one hundred of James Simmons’ poems, among them the ballad, ‘Claudy’, which has entered the repertoire of folk music.

€13.90 pb